


Please, Remember Me

by Wibble



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:16:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wibble/pseuds/Wibble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is discovered in a traumatic state after an attack. Doctors can fix everything but his memory. Can Sherlock find who did this to him and stop him and help John remember?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock stands in the shadows outside of room 21 on the second floor. It is in the far corner, left at the lift and about three hundred yards forward. It has a surgically white door, crisp blue linen, magnolia walls, green carpets and curtains to match.

He watches the head on the pillow. As the hand strikes three, John stirs awake and mumbles incomprehensibly. There is a nurse in the room, the one they don’t like. She is too large for the room, not in physique but in personality. She is a wisp of a person, small with skin so smooth it seems stretched, blonde hair struggles to escape its band and tumbles down her back.

“Good morning Mr Watson, how are we feeling?” Her voice is too loud for a man who can’t remember how old he is.

“Fine.” John mutters, finding her just as intolerable as Sherlock does. They hate the question. “How are we feeling?” We. You are not a part of our lives. Nurse Wisp.

-

Lestrade comes charging down the corridor after mid morning tea.

“Two more,” He says hurriedly. Sherlock gives a curt nod in acknowledgement.

Lestrade flaps his arms exasperatedly, but pushes open the door and enters the room to see John without saying anything. Sherlock knows what he’d like to say is “For fuck’s sake Sherlock, that brings the body count to twenty four, I know he’s your roommate and you were fond of him but you can’t stand here all day when we need you!”

Sherlock doesn’t even smirk in this knowledge. His attention is focused. He knows that if he stays here, he won’t miss it. He won’t blink and miss the exact moment when John starts to remember.

-

John falls asleep after lunch. Sherlock knows he has forty seven and a half minutes. He walks to the roof and makes a call.

Lestrade updates him, he hears Sally in the background telling him not to bother. He might as well be in the bed with John, she mutters, with all the intention of Sherlock hearing.

Sherlock takes mental notes and stores them in the file marked M. All the pieces are scattered, blown by a wind as strong as the desire in his heart to find this man. He wonders if he wasn’t distracted if he would have it solved by now. He realises this is the first stench of doubt he has ever let touch him.

He has his homeless network on the case, and one of them comes to him now. He can’t be expected to remember his name. He smells like stale beer and shit and Sherlock scrunches his nose as he listens.

“That last two was out in Hemel Hempstead which is the most far of any of them, but it’s the same alright, same scarf left on their bodies, same stupid hat. Everything about them destroyed no idea who they are...” He trails off and looks up at the great consulting detective.

“What are you doing about it then, Mr Holmes?”

-

It started after John was brought in on a stretcher three weeks ago. Bodies being found by dog walkers, by kids, by old ladies pushing their shopping home in a cart.

Lestrade called him straight away and got less of a response than he expected.  Three women who still hadn’t been identified; no teeth for dental records, finger prints filed off. No profile from their DNA. Each found with a blue scarf and a deerstalker hat.

It was a message.

Sherlock didn’t leave the hospital unless John was asleep. He’d quickly noted his routine and knew when he could be away from his room. He gets those forty seven and a half minutes in the afternoon and six straight hours in the night when John sleeps soundly. The rest of the night is disrupted with shouts and nightmares and John won’t be alone for those, whether he knows it or not.

Sherlock has seen the victims; he has examined the body, made his notes and moved away. Each one slashed at the throat, left to bleed out, then the teeth are removed, the fingers attacked and the body thrown somewhere to be discovered with its accessories.

Three weeks and twenty four bodies and zero progress. Sherlock beats himself up for not having this solved, wrapped up and locked away. It plagues him, and he hates himself more for knowing this is exactly what the killer wants. He can’t leave the hospital when John is awake, or when he’s shouting, it could give him a clue.

He can’t leave that damn hospital just as much as he can’t enter that bloody room.

-

Harriet came out on the eighth day. It was a Friday at two thirty and Sherlock knew it was her as soon as he saw her, but had no idea who had called her. He resolved to blame the hospital.

She had the same mousy coloured hair; it teased her shoulders, was messy with curls and pushed back with a head band. She was a little taller than John, had small blue eyes behind black rimmed glasses and dressed simply in jeans and a woollen jumper.

“You’re Sherlock then,” She stated. “They said you didn’t say much.” She added after he didn’t respond.

Harriet stood next to him and looked in on John.

“It must be so hard for you.” She said and then squeezed his arm before entering the room.

Hard for me?!

-

She brought pictures and his old yearbooks and some newspaper articles from his time in the Army. She told him about their parents and about the golden retriever they’d had as kids, how he was called ‘Pebble’, because they’d found him abandoned in a box on a pebble beach. They’d taken him to the vet and had to wait two weeks before they could take him home.

Harriet brought home videos and they’d made one with a tour of the old house that they grew up in. It took him around the whole town, showed him his schools, his Scouts hut, his best friend’s house, the corner where he fell down and got that scar on his left knee, the tree he fell out of and broke his wrist when he was eleven.

She told him about his favourite books, music, and food and brought samples in for him to try out. She visited every single day, made sure she was there when he woke up from his nap and held his hand tightly if he was having a bad day of it.

Mrs Hudson informed Sherlock that Harriet was staying in John’s room back at the flat. Not that Sherlock had asked.

-

Sherlock tries to get an hour of sleep each night, in the very middle of John’s six hours. He can’t do it. Every single time he closes his eyes the picture is there. Super glued to the inside of his eyelids.

He’d been at Barts. He was examining the effects of bleach on skin particles in the hair, had reached his conclusion and returned expecting John to be forcing some dinner upon him.

“Before you start John, I don’t want any of your damn bolognaise, I have –”

He stopped spotting the figure slumped in the chair.

John was covered in blood, every inch of him bathed in it. His clothes were sopping, his hair was running red all down his face, his hands, his shoes, his...

A quick check told him he was still alive. He screamed down his phone for an ambulance. Panic. Bile. It flooded his mouth and he began to shake.

Sherlock Holmes, collected, cold. Suddenly he was lost to this wreck of a man who couldn’t cope with what was in front of him. He could see it, feel it, but he daren’t believe it.

Paramedics burst in, Mrs Hudson followed, stood in the corner and sobbed.

“Is he okay? Oh Sherlock, who did this?”

He opened his hand, in his palm was the note torn from John’s chest before the paramedics arrived.

 

_Love, M._

 

Sherlock scrunched it in his pocket and hurried after John, yelling for Mrs Hudson to call Lestrade.

John was rushed to theatre.

Seven agonising hours were spent waiting. People turned up and waited with him. Molly, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, even Mycroft.

“Watson?” The doctor asked entering the room.

“Yes,” Molly whispered.

“I’m Dr Chetney, he’s stable, there was a lot to fix, but he’ll make it. He will need to stay with us for some time though, to heal and so we can monitor progress,”

“That’s good, oh thank goodness,” Mrs Hudson cried.

“There is one more thing,” Dr Chetney said and heaved a sigh as they all looked at him. “There is some damage to his medial temporal lobe and well,”

“What is it?” Sherlock snapped.

“I’m afraid he doesn’t remember anything.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up and doesn’t know where he is.

He takes a deep breath and looks around the room, green, white, blue. He knows the colours, he knows the curtains, he knows the feel of his own body but he can’t place it. It’s like seeing someone across the aisle on the train and knowing you know them but can’t for the life of you think where from. You don’t want them to turn and have to deal with the awkward conversations, especially if they remember you completely.

But the door opens and it’s just like that awkward conversation with the lady that walks in. 

“Morning brother,” She smiles. 

Right, this is... this is... no. Nothing. 

“Anything?” She asks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It’s the same colour as his own. He knows this because he has a mirror on the bedside table and he checks.   
He shakes his head.

She takes a deep breath, holds it all in and hopes he doesn’t notice. But he does. 

“It’s okay,” She says in a small voice. “I’m Harriet.” 

Harriet reaches out a hand to stroke the side of his face, maybe cup a cheek, but she thinks better of it and sits down on the chair instead, firmly tucking her hands under her bum. Her legs swing underneath and it makes her appear smaller than she is. She’s childlike and he doesn’t know whether it comforts him or puts him off.

“You’re John,” She says gently.

“John.” He tries the name on his tongue and finds it okay.

She begins to tell him how she’s his sister and that they grew up with their parents in a tiny village where everyone knew everything about everyone else. She tells him he was quietly confident throughout school, went to university, trained and joined the army just after their Father died. She says their Mother died just three years ago. 

“It’s good in a way,” She says. “That they didn’t have to see you...”

“Like this?” He asks and she nods. “At least they had you, eh?”

Harriet shrugs and blushes. 

“Were they good parents?” 

“They were, Johnny, they really were.” She says fondly whilst John scrunches up his nose. 

“Johnny,” He scowls.

“No, you never did like it.” She giggles and it relaxes him. 

“What have the doctors said?”

“They hope it will begin to come back, that you’ll remember, that you’ll start holding on to the new ones.”

John nods. 

They talk for a long time before John begins to get drowsy. She draws the blinds and flicks the radio on so he can fall asleep with the noise. He prefers it that way. He can’t stand the silence. It’s unnatural to him.

He wonders what kind of life he lived before, to make him want to be around noise all the time, to not be able to relax in silence. He feels lonely and afraid if the room is empty. It’s as if he needs to know someone is near, like if he called out, someone would come running.

He falls into an uneasy and lively sleep. Flashes of colour run before his eyes and there is noise, noise all around, it’s not just the radio anymore. It begins with street traffic, doors slamming and hurried footsteps. Flashes of amber, red, yellow. 

He is in a room, in an armchair; a familiar smell floods his nostrils. It smokes out his brain, he likes it, and he wants it. He needs it.

-

When he wakes up there is a greying man in the chair. Not old, but weathered by his occupation. 

“Alright then?” He asks. John shrugs.

“I’m Greg,” He holds out his hand and John shakes it. 

“John,” He smiles, “or so I’ve been told.” 

“I’m a policeman,” Greg says quickly. “Well, Detective Inspector but that doesn’t... it’s not...” He trails off.

“Are you here for a statement?”

“What?”

“A statement, about the accident?”

“Oh, no,” He shuffles his newspaper awkwardly. “No, we’re...uh... we’re friends.”

“Oh, right.” John clasps his hands together and gives a small smile.”

“For long?” 

“A few years now, we met through a mutual...erm...”

“Friend?”

“Not really.” 

“Another policeman?”

“No...Not really.” Greg scratches his head awkwardly and stands up. “Well I just wanted to check in on you, I have to get back, I’ll come again tomorrow.”

John watches him walk to the door, sees his shoulders slump and feels guilty.

“Thank you Greg.” 

Greg gives him a sad smile and leaves. 

As the door closes, John catches a glimpse of a long coat, of black hair, of a man stalking Greg for answers.


End file.
